Ludwig Biermann studied at the Technische Hochschule in Hanover, and the Universities of Munich and Freiburg before earning his Ph.D. at Göttingen in 1932. He worked at Edinburgh, Jena, Berlin, and Hamburg before becoming founding director of the astrophysics section of the Max-Planck-Institut für Physik und Astrophysik, first at Göttingen and after 1958 in Munich. (It is now the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics.) Biermann made important contributions to the theory of convection in stellar interiors before the source of stellar energy was known. He modeled the solar chromosphere and corona. He and Thomas G. Cowling did similar work on stellar interiors and stability, and before and after World War II they collaborated by letter. Biermann computed atomic physics parameters needed for stellar models. His study of comet tails led to successful predictions of the solar wind and of the hydrogen halos around comets. In his later years he specialized in plasma physics and magnetic fields in the solar system and in the Galaxy.